The Lament Of A Pin Cushion Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

Ouch! I say when the first pin goes in
Oh! I repeat and add an expletive and
Then I seize to say anything for I see
These pins are like acacia thorns which
Got into the bottom of my feet when I
Still had no shoes.

Someone should have told me that these
Things that hurt were going to make
A pin cushion out of my little heart.
I would have learned to harden and
Be more like a watermelon for the shape
And the pulp would do the crying. Clever
Fruit that you are for you knew the shape
And the color and the stripes that go with
Life not pushing sharp objects small and
Piercing, but forced everyone to use a blade
Or just dig in with their hungry mouths.

I see the love that goes into you watermelon
When they drool for your sap and wish I was
Also just make of substance rather than this
Cloth that anyone can poke into and not even
Care to wash or dust for all I am is a mere
Pin cushion, red all round and green at the top.

Even invisible stingers like death do me down
When you just disappear and nobody sees how
You die, for who cares about the process when
All they know is a deed done in the darkness
Called the soul.

I have never heard of a blight attacking
But in this mere tomato world we live in
The tomato chose to be cloth thinking there
Would be no blight but dust discovered a
Way to do it to us even in this lifeless
So called existence where the sewing
Machine neighbors keep going on and on,
While we wait for an end at the factory
Of love and the woebegone pushing of the
Pins like syringes into a bum that is
Forever diseased.

If I was as big as a sofa cushion
I would get a chance to sting a few
When they lay their bottoms on me.
As small as I am nobody can mistake
Me for anything, but a thing to push
Around, into, and pull pins out of, for
With no feet, I cannot even walk away